The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on Thursday welcomed the historical adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention and Recommendation by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
However, it called on the ILO to ensure governments around the world were put on notice about protecting the millions of people in the domestic work sphere.
This was contained in a statement issued in Brussels and copied to Ghana News Agency in Accra.
With many millions of migrant workers in domestic labor around the world, the ITUC said that without proper monitoring, these workers would continue to suffer violent and oppressive employment conditions, exploitative recruitment agencies, remuneration below legal minimums, nonpayment of wages, exclusion from social security schemes, excessive working hours, and the worst forms of child domestic labour.
“The adoption of this Convention is a great victory, and we call upon all governments to ratify and implement it and upon the ILO to provide clear guidance to these countries that need to improve their laws to protect domestic workers’ rights in their economies,” General Secretary of ITUC, Ms Sharan Burrow, said.
The ITUC has reported on widespread oppression and violence against migrant domestic workers in the Gulf. These migrant women workers come mainly from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia and Ethiopia.
“The international union movement will continue to shed light on the working conditions of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf Countries, in particular Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain,” Ms Burrow said.
“It is not acceptable that in countries with strong economies and a lot of personal wealth, we have an underclass of domestic slaves, whose passports are taken when they arrive, and who have no one to turn to if their employer treats them with violence or harassment,” Ms Burrow added.
Ms Burrow called on the ILO to develop an action plan specifically for the monitoring of the implementation of the Convention in the Gulf.
There are an estimated 2.1 million migrant domestic workers, 83 per cent are women and it is estimated that in total, domestic work accounts for no less than 7.5 per cent of women wage employment worldwide.
The Convention on Domestic Workers passed on Thursday at the ILO, after many years of campaigning by unions, migrants’ and women’s organisations around the world, is a benchmark, it is a key instrument to ensure that workers in informal and precarious jobs have an effective access to decent work.